Romance Writers of America was in New York this year.  The hub of publishing.  It was an awesome conference, and I was lucky enough to be invited to speak.  This year, I delivered a Reader's Digest version of the workshop that Laura Baker and I developed, Discovering Story Magic using the movie, Good Will Hunting as a template.  Discovering Story Magic is a three-step method for creating a story they can't refuse.  The story is created from the characters up.

Now, I'm the first to admit--and those of you who read my blog know--I plan my books.  The great thing about Discovering Story Magic (DSM) is that it can be used after-the-fact to revise and fine-tune your book. I'm not going to go into the entire workshop here.  There are packets available on the Discovering Story Magic website--100-page packets that analyze several different movies using DSM.  However, today, I thought I'd provide a chart that compares several plotting methods as well as a link to the presenatation I gave at RWA in New York (especially for those who wanted the Self-Image worksheet).